At Lighter Footstep, we've long recommended CFLs for their amazing efficiency and energy saving potential.

But there's a catch: mercury. Every CFL contains up to 5 milligrams per bulb. That's a small amount. But when you consider no amount is truly safe -- and that over 80 million CFLs have been sold in the United States so far in 2007 -- the importance of proper recycling becomes clear.

Too bad it's not widely available. But we've rounded up five ways to safely dispose of your spent CFLs. Ready to save energy and keep mercury out of our landfills? Then hit the full article and get started! 

Saturday is the seventh annual World Carfree Day.  It's an event organizers describe as a showcase for how our cites might look, feel, and operate without automobiles.

For those of us who are trying to live lower-imact lives, World Carfree Day is an opportunity to leave the keys at home for 24 hours and try out some new transportation strategies. It's amazing, really, how central cars are to our lives -- and how our communities have come to be built around the idea of urban sprawl and cheap gasoline.

Ready to break free? Here are a few ways to celebrate World Carfree Day in eco-friendly style. Hit the full article for more.

We're happy to welcome Colin Beavan as a guest author on Lighter Footstep. You might know him better as No Impact Man. Colin and his family are conducting a  year-long experiment in minimalist urban living right in the heart of New York. He's a longtime friend of Lighter Footstep, and we hope you'll enjoy getting to know him as much as we have.

I harp on a lot about the opportunities in our environmental crisis. If there is one resounding lesson I've learned during No Impact Man, my one year experiment in extreme environmental living, it's that being kinder to the planet can also mean being kinder to ourselves. Eating local and seasonal, part of the experiment, also means eating more healthily. Getting ride of TV means a lot more time spent playing charades and scrabble with friends and family. The list goes on.

It works the other way around too. It turns out that world leaders who put the happiness of their people before the growth of the economy -- an economic philosophy know as "hedonics" -- often find that their happiness policies also turn out to be planet-friendly policies. This is no surprise, since the hedonics model tends to emphasize people before cars and community before consumption.

One world leader who follows hedonics is Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, who is currently running again (Bogota's constitution does not allow consecutive terms).

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you've probably already noticed the first hints of autumn: a blush of color in the leaves; earlier sunsets; and cooler evenings. In just a few days, our calendars will catch up with nature, and we'll begin the headlong rush toward winter.

Spring and autumn are the "fix-up" seasons, as we make ready for big changes in the weather. What you do over the next few weeks can make a tremendous difference to the size of your environmental footprint through the winter. So we've put together a few autumn to-do items to get you started. Sharpen your pencil -- and start checking a few off your list!